One More Time
Note: I hope you guys liked the last chapter. I want to thank Laniel, Outofthisworldgal, Forever Fanfiction Lover22 and xXxOtAkU-444 for the review. I also want to thank for the new favorite and follows.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock it belongs to Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I don't own the Hobbit it belongs to Tolkien and Peter Jackson for the movies. I also don't own the other shows/movies I will be using they belong to their owners.
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One More Time
Ten: Not A Hero Pt.2
Sherlock and Joan were in St. Bart's, Sherlock was doing research and experimenting trying to get things done and solve the puzzle.
"So, who do you suppose it was?" Joan said.
"Hmm?"
"Woman on the phone, the crying woman."
"Oh, she doesn't matter, she's just a hostage." He told her. "No leads there."
"For God's sakes, I wasn't talking about leads." Joan told him.
"You're not going to be much use to her."
"Are they trying to trace it, trace the call?" Joan asked him, ignoring his previous words.
"One was too smart for that." Sherlock told her and another beep from his phone. "Pass me my phone." He told her.
"Where is it?" she asked him.
"Jacket." He told her and Joan moved to his side being a little rough. "Careful." He told her.
"Text, from your brother." Joan told him.
"Delete it."
"Delete it?" she asked.
"Missile plans are out of the country now. Nothing we can do about it." Sherlock said to her.
"Well, Mycroft think there is. He's texted you eighty times. Must be important."
"Then why didn't he cancel his dental appointment?" Sherlock asked her.
"He's what?"
"Mycroft never texts if he can talk, Look Andrew West stole the missile plans, tried to sell them got his head smashed in for his pains, end of story the only mystery is this. Why is my brother so determined to bore me, when somebody else is being so delightfully interesting?"
"Try and remember there's a woman who might die." Joan told him.
"What for?" he asked her. "There's hospital full of dying people, Doctor. Why don't you go cry by their bedside? See what good it does them." Joan didn't say anything and the computer beeped. "Ah."
"Any luck?" Molly asked coming inside.
"Uh yes." Sherlock told her. There was someone at the door as well.
"Sorry for interrupting." The male said.
"Jim hi, come in, come in." Molly said. "Jim this is Sherlock Holes. Ah…." Molly was looking at Joan.
"Joan Watson, hi." She told the man.
"Hi, so you're Sherlock Holmes. Molly's told meal about you. You're on one of your cases?" Jim asked Sherlock and Joan knew that the guy was waiting his time. She felt a small shiver run down her spine though. And in her mind an eye appear made out of fire and a weird voice promising her things. She blocked it, since it came mostly in her nightmares and she didn't know why it came now.
"Jim works in IT, upstairs." Molly told them or Sherlock. "That's how we met office romance."
"Gay." Sherlock said and Joan looked at him in surprise.
"Sorry, what?" Jim said.
"Nothing, hey." Sherlock told him. Jim crossed close to Joan and she felt he shiver run down her spine once more before the man moved and dropped something. She turned around because she knew Sherlock was going to kill the man and she felt bad for him something told her she shouldn't.
"Sorry, sorry." Jim said moving close to Molly. "Hi. Well, I'd better be off. I'll see you at the Fox, about six-ish."
"Yeah." Molly said.
"Bye, it was nice to meet you." Jim told Sherlock and Joan knew he wouldn't answer.
"You too." Joan said and Jim turned to her and she hid the shiver. He left the room and she felt fine.
"What do you mean gay?" Molly asked. "We're together."
"And domestic bliss most suits you, Molly. You've put on 3 pounds since I last saw you." Sherlock told her, and Joan tried not to wince.
"Two and a half." Molly said.
"Three." Sherlock told her.
"Sherlock." Joan warned him, but it was too late.
"He's not gay!" Molly said working herself up. "Why do you have to spoil—he's not?"
"With that level of personal grooming." Sherlock said.
"Because he puts product in his hair? You put product in your hair." Joan told him.
"I wash my hair there's a difference." Sherlock told her. "No, no tinted eyelashes. Clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines, those tired clubber's eyes, then there's his underwear."
"His underwear?" Molly asked even Joan was curious about it.
"Visible about the waistline, very visible, very particular brand, that plus the suggestive fact that he just left this number under this dish here-" Sherlock told her "and I'd say you'd better break it off now and save yourself the pain." Molly just leaves and Joan could see tears there.
"Charming; well done."
"Just saving her time, isn't that kinder?" Sherlock asked her.
"Kinder? No, no Sherlock that wasn't kind." Joan told him.
"I should tell you that Garrett is gay—"Sherlock began to tell her about it, because he wanted her to know, he couldn't let her get her hopes up.
"I know and he's bisexual, I knew since I was fifteen because I used to cover for him when he went on dates with blokes." Joan told Sherlock.
"He could have dealt with it." Sherlock told her.
"Oropher was not very accepting about his son being bisexual, hence the marriage." Joan told him.
"Why did you shiver?" Sherlock asked changing the subject and Joan looked at him.
"What?" Joan asked.
"When Molly's Boyfriend came in you shivered, why?" Sherlock asked.
"The room was cold." Joan told him. Sherlock looked at her straight in the eyes and Joan stood her ground, it was a lie they both knew it.
"Fine, I didn't like him; don't ask because I don't know." Joan said and Sherlock knew that was all he was going to get out of her. So he moves to the next thing pushing one of the shoes closer to her.
"Go on, then." He told her.
"Hmm?" she says.
"You know what I do, off you go."
"Um no," she tells him. "I'm not going to stand here so you can humiliate me while I try and—"
"An outside eyes, a second opinion, it's very useful to me." Sherlock tells her.
"Yeah, right."
"Really!" Sherlock says looking into her eyes.
"Fine. Oh, they're just a pair of shoes—trainers."
"Good." He tells her.
"Um…they're in good nick; I'd say they were pretty new, except the sole has been well-worn, so the owner must have had them for a while." She said moving the shoe around. "Uh, very 80's probably one of those retro designs."
"You're on sparkling form, what else?" Sherlock told her.
"They're quite big, a man's—"
"But."
"But there's a trace of a name inside in felt-tip and adult's don't write their names inside their shoes, so this belonged to a kid."
"Excellent, what else?"
"Uh…that's it." Joan told him.
"That's it."
"How did I do?" Joan asked him.
"Well done Joan." Sherlock told her before doing something with his face that Joan knew was not going to be good. "Really well, I mean you missed almost everything of importance, but you know—"he told her getting the shoes.
"The owner loved these, scrubbed them clean whitened where they got discolored changed lases three…no four times." He told her. "Even so, there are traces of his flaky skin when his fingers have come in contact with ties so he suffered from eczema. The shoes are well-worn more so in the inner side, which means the owner had weak arches. British-make, 20 years old."
"20 years?"
"They're not retro, they're original." Sherlock told her. "Limited edition, two blue stripes, 1989."
"But there's still mud on them, they look new."
"Someone's kept them that way, quite a bit of mud caked on the soles." Sherlock told her. "Analysis shows it's from Sussex with London mud over laying it."
"How do you know?"
"Pollen, clear as a DNA reference to me." Sherlock told her. "South of the river, so the kid wore these trainers, came to London from Sussex 20 years ago and left them behind."
"What happened to him?"
"Something bad, I mean he loved these shoes; remember." Sherlock told her. "He'd never leave them filthy, wouldn't let them go unless he had to, so a child with big feet gets…Oh!"
"What?" Joan asked.
"Carl Powers."
"Sorry, who?"
"Carl Powers, Joan."
"What is it?"
"It's where I began." He told her and they left the labs.
#
Joan and Sherlock were in a cab. Sherlock began to talk about Carl Powers.
"1989, young kind, champion swimmer, came up from Brighton for a school sports tournaments, drowned in the pool." He told her. "Tragic accident, you wouldn't remember it, why would you?"
"But you remember."
"Yes."
"Something fishy about it?"
"Nobody thought so, nobody except me. I was only a kid myself I read about in the newspapers."
"You started young didn't you?"
"The boy, Carl Powers, had some kind of fit in the water, but by the time they got him out, it was too late. There was something wrong somewhere; I couldn't get it out of my head."
"What?"
"His shoes."
"What about them?"
"They weren't there. I made a fuss, I tried to get the police interested, but nobody seem to think it was important, he'd left all the rest of his clothes in the locker. But there was no sign of his shoes." Sherlock told her. "Until now."
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Joan was in Mycroft's office since she had asked Sherlock if she could help and he had sent her here. She was told to dress nice for this.
"Joan! How nice, I'm hoping it won't be long." Mycroft told her coming inside, she noticed that he was touching his cheek and Joan had to know if Sherlock was right. "How can I help?"
"Thank you um…I was wanting to." She began. "Your brother sent me to collect more fact about the stolen plans, the missile plans."
"Did he." He said looking at her.
"Yes." Joan told him. "He's investigating now; he's uh….investigating away."
"Um, I just wondered what else you could tell me about the dead man." She asked of him.
"Um, 27. Clerk at Vauxhall Cross, MI6. He was involved in the Bruce-Partington program in minor capacity security clears A-Okay, no known terrorist affiliations or sympathies. Last seen by his fiancée at 10.30 yesterday evening." He began to tell her and Joan wrote everything down.
"Right he was found at Battersea, yes. So he got on the train?" she asked him.
"No."
"What?"
"He had an Oyster card, but it hadn't been used."
"He must have brought a ticket."
"Hmm…there was no ticket on the body."
"Then,"
"Then how did he end up with a bashed in brain on the tracks of Buttersea? That is the question. The one I was rather hoping Sherlock would provide an answer to. How's he getting on?" he asked her.
"He's fine and it is going…very well. So he's um…he's completely focused on it." she told him.
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Sherlock had solved the bomber's clue and the woman was finally save with the addition that they found out the bomber was also the murderer of Carl Powers.
#
"She lives in Cornwell." Lestrade told them. "2 men broke in wearing masks forced her into the car park and decked her out in enough explosives to take down a house. Told her to phone you, check the read out from this pager." He told them and showed them the pager.
"Well if she deviated by one word, the snipper would set her off."
"Or if you hadn't solved the case." Joan tells Sherlock.
"Oh elegant." Sherlock said.
"Elegant." Joan said.
"What was the point? Why would anyone do this?" Lestrade asked. Sherlock was looking out the door.
"No, I can't be the only person in the world that gets bored." Sherlock says before the phone rings again.
"You have one new message." It begins with the Pips once more.
"Four pips."
"First test passed it would seem. Here's the second. It's abandoned, wouldn't you say?" Sherlock told Greg showing him the phone.
"I'll see if it's been reported." Greg told them. The door opened and it was Donovan.
"Freak, it's for you." She said holding out a phone. Joan looks at Sherlock as he goes out.
"Hello." He asked.
'It's okay that you've gone to the police.' The voice said.
"Who's this, is this you again?" he asked.
'But don't rely on them.' the voice of the new victim told him. 'Clever you guessing about Carl Powers; I never liked him; Carl laughed at me so I stopped him laughing.'
"You've stolen another voice, I presume." Sherlock asked.
'This is about you and me.' The voice said.
"Who are you?" Sherlock asked. "What's that noise?"
'It's the sound of life, Sherlock.' The voice said. 'But don't worry I can soon fix that. You solve my last puzzle in 9 hours. This time you have eight.'
"Great! We've found it." Lestrade said.
#
They had gone to find a car and Lestrade was explaining everything to Sherlock and Joan was behind him, she was stopped by Donovan.
"You're still around him?"
"Yeah, well."
"Opposites attract, I suppose." Donovan told her.
"No, we're not." She told her beginning to object when she gave up, it was not like it was going to change anything,
"You should get yourself a hobby, stamps, maybe trains, safer and respectable." Donovan told her.
"You're telling me about being respectable." Joan said moving over to Sherlock.
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Sherlock got another call.
"Hello."
'The clues in the name Janus Cars.' The voice said.
"Who would you be giving me a clue?" Sherlock asked.
'When does anyone do anything?' the voice said. 'Because I'm bored. We were made for each other Sherlock.'
"Then talk to me in your own voice."
'Patience.' The voice said and clicked.
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Sherlock had solved the second puzzle and he had taken Joan to eat.
"Feeling better?"
"We've hardly stopped for breath since this thing started again." Joan told him. "Has it occurred to you—"
"Probably." Sherlock said and Joan raised an eyebrow and wanted to kick him under the table.
"No, has it occurred to you that the bomber's playing a game with you." Joan told him. "The envelopes breaking into the other flat, the dead kids shoes, it's all meant for you."
"Yes, I know." He told her.
"Is it him then? Moriarty?" Joan asked.
"Perhaps." He told her, before the phone rang again and they got a picture.
"That could be anybody." Sherlock told Joan.
"Oh, could be, yeah." Joan told him, with a soft smile. "Lucky for you, I've been more than a little unemployed."
"How do you mean?"
"Lucky for you, Mrs. Hudson and I watch far too much telly." Joan said getting up to change the channel and the phone rang.
"Hello." Sherlock said.
'This one is a little bit defective.' The voice said. 'Sorry she's blind this is a funny on. I'll give you 12 hours.'
"Why are you doing this?" Sherlock asked.
'I like to watch you dance.' The voice said before they clicked.
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They were inside the morgue to see the body that had been sent as a clue.
"Connie Prince, 54. She has one of those makeover shows on the telly. Did you see it?" Lestrade asked.
"No." Sherlock said.
"Very popular, she was going places."
"Not anymore."
"So dead for days, according to one of her staff, Raoul de Santos, she cut her head on a rusty nail in the garden. Nasty wound, tetanus bacteria enters her blood stream-Good night Vienna." Sherlock began.
"I suppose."
"Something wrong with the picture."
"Hey." Lestrade said.
"It can't be as simple as it seems. Otherwise the bomber wouldn't be directing us towards it." Sherlock said. "Somethings wrong."
"Joan."
"Hmm."
"Cut on her hand, its deep, would have bled a lot, right?"
"Yeah."
"But the wounds clean. Very clean fresh." Sherlock told her. "How long would the bacteria have been incubating inside her?"
"Oh, eight, ten days." Joan answered getting it. "The cut was made later."
"After she was dead?"
"Must have been, the question is how did the tetanus enter a dead woman's system." Sherlock asked her. "You want to help right?"
"Of course." Joan said.
"Connie Prince's background, family history, everything get me data." Sherlock said and Lestrade was seeing how close they were. He got protective, like he didn't want to see Joan hurt because he had seen closeness before but this was different.
"Right." Joan told him and left.
"There's something else that we haven't thought out?" Lestrade told him.
"Is there?" Sherlock asked him.
"Yes." Lestrade told him. "Why is he doing this the bomber? If this woman's dead was suspicious, why point it out?"
"Good Samaritan." Sherlock told him.
"Who press gang's suicide bombers?"
"Bad Samaritan." Sherlock said.
"I'm serious, Sherlock?" Lestrade told him stopping him. "Listen, I'm cutting you slack here, I'm trusting you but out there somewhere some poor bastard is covered in semtex just waiting for you to solve the puzzle. So just tell me, what are we dealing with?"
"Something new." Sherlock told him.
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They were back in 221B; Sherlock had the wall covered with papers trying to find something.
"Connections, connections, connections there must be a connection." He told no one and Lestrade for he was there. "Carl Powers killed 20 years ago, the bomber knew him, admitted that he knew him. The bomber's phone was in the station from the Czech Republic. The first hostage from Cornwall, the second from London, the 3th from Yorkshire, judging by her accent. What's he doing working his way around the world, showing off?" Sherlock snapped, when the phone rang.
'You're enjoying this aren't you?' the voice said. 'Joining the dots 3 hours. Boom—boom.'
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Joan had gone to Connie Prince's home, to visit her brother and she had gotten in. she had to go change into one of her nicer outfits though for this.
"We've devastated of course we are." The brother told her.
"Can I get you anything ma'am." She asked.
"Uh, no, no, thank you." She told him politely.
"Raul is my rock. I don't think I could have managed. We didn't always see eye to eye, but my sister was very dear to me."
"And to the public, Mr. Prince." Joan said kindly.
"Oh she was adored, I've seen her take girls who looked like the back of Route masters and turn them into princesses." Mr. Prince told her. "Still it's a relief in a way to know that she's beyond this veil of tears."
"Absolutely." Joan said and tried to get the cat away from her.
#
"Great, thank you, that again." Sherlock said.
"It's a real shame, I liked her." Mrs. Hudson told Lestrade about Connie Prince. "She thought you how to do your colors."
"Colors?" Lestrade asked.
"You know, what goes best with what? I should never wear cerise apparently drains me." she told him. "I think it helped Joan with her looks as well, she's beautiful of course but I'm trying to get her out of her jumpers, she was in a dress." Lestrade nodded.
""I've never seen Joan in a dress." Lestrade said.
"Oh, it was so very nice; it was for a 'date' the dress was white." Mrs. Hudson said, whispering the date part and Lestrade nodded turning to Sherlock.
"Who's that?"
"Home office." Sherlock told him.
"Home office?"
"Well home secretary actually." Sherlock told him. "Owes me a favor."
"She's a pretty girl, but she messed about with herself too much." Mrs. Hudson told them. "They all do these days, people can hardly mover their faces, is silly isn't it? Did you ever see her show?"
"Not until now." Sherlock told her bringing out his laptop.
"No lost love there if you can believe the papers."
"So I gather." Sherlock said. "I've just been having a very fruitful chat with people who love this show. The fan site's indispensable for gossip."
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"It's more common than people think tetanus is in the soil, people cut themselves in the rose bushes, that sort of thing and if left untreated." Joan told Mr. Prince.
"I don't know what I'm going to do now." He told her.
"Why?" Joan asked.
"I mean, she's left me this place, which is lovely, but it's not the same without her."
"That's why—my paper wanted to get the full story straight from the horse's mouth, sure is not too soon."
"No."
"Right." She told him and he sat down and grabbed her hair.
"Fire away." He told her. "Your hair is beautiful, what do you put in it."
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"Joan." Sherlock answered the phone.
"Hi—look, get over here quickly. I think I'm onto something, you need to pick up some stuff first, and you've got a pen-"
"I'll remember." Sherlock told her.
#
"That'll be him." Joan said
"What?" Mr. Prince asked.
"Ah, Mr. Prince isn't it."
"Yes."
"Very good to meet you." Sherlock said. "So sorry about to hear about-"
"Yes, yes very kind."
"Shall we." Joan asked before they moved so they could speak together. "You were right, the bacteria got into her another way."
"Oh yes."
"Yes."
"Are we ready?"
"Yes." Sherlock began to take pictures of Mr. Prince.
"Not too close, I'm raw from crying."
"Oh who's this?" Sherlock asked about the cat.
"Sekhmet, name after the Egyptian goddess." Mr. Prince told them.
"How nice, was she Connie's?" Sherlock asked him.
"Yes a little present from yours truly."
"Sherlock, light reading?" Joan told him.
"Oh, uh…"
"What are you playing at?" Mr. Prince asked as the flash from the camera was hard.
"Sorry!"
"You're like Laurel and bloody Hardy, you two?" Mr. Prince said. "What's going on?"
"Actually, I think we've got what we came for, excuse us." Joan said.
"What?"
"Sherlock!"
"What?" Sherlock said. "We've got deadlines?"
"But you've not taken anything."
#
"Yes, ooh yea!" Joan was happy.
"You think it was the cat, it wasn't the cat." Sherlock told her.
"Yes it is—"Joan said. "It must be, it's how he got the tetanus into her system, and its paw stinks of disinfectant."
"Lovely idea."
"No; he coated it onto the claws of her cat, it' a new pet bound to be a bit jumpy around her, scratches almost inevitable, she knew that."
"I thought of it the minute I saw the scratches on her arm but it's too random and too clever for the brother to have done it."
"He murdered his sister for her money." Joan said.
"Did he?"
"Didn't he?"
"Nope."
"It's revenge."
"Who wanted revenge?"
"Raoul the houseboy, Kenny Prince was the butt of his sister's jokes, week in, week out." Sherlock explained. "A virtual bullying campaign, finally he had enough fell out with her badly it's all on the website. She threatened to disinherit Kenny, Raoul had grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle—"
"Wait, wait, wait a second." Joan says pulling his arm and stopping him both standing in front of each other. "What about the disinfectant then in the cat's claws?"
"Raoul keeps a very clean house." Sherlock told her. "You came through the kitchen door, saw the state of that floor scrubbed within an inch of its life. You smell of disinfectant." He says to her. "No the cat doesn't come into it, Raoul's internet records do, though. I hope we can get a cab from here."
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They both arrived to Scotland Yard and Sherlock began talking.
"Raoul de Santos is your killer. Kenny Prince's houseboy second autopsy show it wasn't tetanus that poisoned Connie Prince, it was botulinum toxin, we've been here before Carl Powers Tut-tut. Our bomber's repeated himself."
"So how'd he do it?"
"Botox injection."
"Botox?"
"Botox is a diluted form of botulinum, among other things; Raoul De Santos was employed to give Connie her regular facial injections. My contact at the home office gave me the complete records of Raoul's internet purchases; he's been bulk-ordering Botox for months. Bided his time, and then upped the strength to a fatal dose."
"Are you sure about this?" Lestrade asked.
"I'm sure."
"Alright my office." Lestrade moved toward his office and Joan looked at Sherlock.
"Hey, Sherlock, how long?" she asked.
"What?" Sherlock asked.
"How long have you known?" she asked.
"Well this one was quite simple actually; the bomber repeated himself that was a mistake." Sherlock told her.
"Sherlock the hostage the old woman, she's been there all this time!" Joan snapped.
"I knew I could save her, I also knew that the bomber had given us 12 hours, I solved the case quickly that gave me time to get on with other things. Don't you see? We're on up on him." Sherlock told her.
#
"Hello?" Sherlock answered the phone as he had answered the puzzle on his website.
'Help me.'
"Tell us where you are? Address." Sherlock wanted to know.
'He was so—his voice.'
"No, no, no, no, no, no! Tell me nothing about him, nothing."
'He sounded so soft.' That's when he heard it.
"Hello?" Sherlock said and he lowered the phone.
"Sherlock." Joan said.
"What's happened?" Lestrade asked. But they already knew or had an idea.
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Note: This is the end of the chapter. Also Laniel the answer to your question it's the G & J that won't get to together. Don't forget to review.